Summary

97

Appropriation

Fall 2019

Contemporary art practices are constantly going outside the field of art to appropriate the codes, gestures, and mechanisms of other social and cultural spheres. However, appropriation also involves the question of social responsibility with regards to artists and curators, particularly in recent debates around cultural appropriation. The aim of this issue is to take some distance from the polarization of the controversies so as to try to better understand what these various forms of appropriation show us about current artistic creation at the aesthetic, ethical, and political levels.

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Current Issue

Water

We now face a global water crisis. Warning signs are flashing everywhere about the increased desertification of the Earth, the industrial pollution of water resources, and the over-exploitation of aquifers. Faced with such a bleak portrait and the fact that environmental and humanitarian challenges are dependent on economic issues and interlinked policies, which are framed by complex laws, the influence of art is relatively modest. Nevertheless, alongside civic actions that we should actively do, artists can give back to water its symbolic and sacred value. Taking a poetical approach to water, the artists and theorists in this issue navigate between aesthetic forms, activist actions, and metaphor-rich analytical thinking. Adopting a resolutely critical perspective, the articles refer to artworks that try to raise awareness about water pollution and climate issues, envisage a restorative justice, and offer new horizons of hope.

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